Monday, August 15, 2005

more on how cool the Delaware Valley is and the 101st post

So I am endlessly fascinated with regionalism of all sorts. I find regional pronounciation and vocabulary to be particularly interesting.

Take this New York, from Wikipedia:

"The accent of Philadelphia and nearby parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, is probably the original ancestor of General American. It is one of the few coastal accents that is rhotic, and one of the first to merge the historical [oɹ] of hoarse, mourning with the [ɔɹ] of horse, morning. It also maintains the cot-caught contrast, unlike New England and western Pennsylvania. Nevertheless there are differences between modern Philadelphia speech and General American, some of which will be outlined here."

Wikipedia has a bunch of cool stuff on regional pronounciation and vocab and I imagine it's even cooler if you understand all that weird notation. According to the Pittsburghese section, I am a hybrid Western PA/Delaware Valley speaker. I say 'jagers' for spikey plants, 'jimmies' for ice cream sprinkles and I know what city chicken is and how to make it. However, I call the night before Halloween 'mischief night' and I pronounce the word 'caught' as cawt and the word 'cot' as cot.

Also, this is my 101st post. That's something.

Also, Ryan Mills-Knapp, eventhough your accent and regional vocab isn't as cool as mine, I still love you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Matthew D Dunn said...

This was a spammer comment, so I erased it. Bitches.